Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Look at God, Not People

I know people who have never allowed a
relationship between themselves and God to develop because of the way supposed
“Christians” treated them way back when, or the way they perceive Christians and the church acting now.

Perhaps you are one of these people. Maybe you were a pregnant, unmarried teen and felt judged by
a “Christian” family member, pastor, congregation or some other “Christian.” Or
perhaps you felt inadequate in some other way and perceived a finger pointed at
you by a supposed “Christian.” I have two things to say to this: 1) Make sure
it isn’t your own judgment you are feeling and displacing onto others. Many people
feel their own guilt and then attribute it to others laying it on them. 2) Looking at how other “Christians” treated you or failed to love you only does
one thing: it keeps you from looking at and seeing God.

People spend decades remembering or reimagining how people
have treated them, thus blocking all opportunities to learn how God
actually does and desires to treat people. Their worldview of the past and
people in the past prevents them from getting to know God now. They are missing
out. Maybe you are missing out.

The second group of people I am familiar with (I was
in this group at one time) is those who were raised on sound bites of what born
again Christians, God, Jesus, and the Bible are like. They never got to know a
true Christian and never attended a real Bible-honoring and believing church. They
never read the Bible. But they adopted someone else’s biased opinion and
never got beyond it to find out for themselves what they believe about God,
Jesus, true believers and the Bible. These, too, are missing out.

It’s one thing to have rejected God for yourself after
getting to actually know Him and understand who He is. It’s another thing to
reject Him when you don’t even have a proper understanding of Him and are rejecting
Him based on your interactions with other people.

Not all people in churches are Christians. I grew up in and attended several non-Bible believing "churches" for years and was not a Christian, nor did I have any clue as to how to
live as one because I did not know God, Jesus or the Bible. And Christians aren’t perfect. We still sin.

The Triune God of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, however, is
perfect and does not sin. Who are you going to trust with your life? People? Or
our Triune God?

"Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of His glory and grace" Helen H. Lemmel 1922

“And
lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone.” Matthew 17:8